Friday, 28 February 2025

The Way of the Scooter

One of my dreams has always been to ride a motorbike of some sort.  Being too afraid to get a scooter previously when living in Beijing, for fear of being crumpled under a speeding bus, and not being able to ride one back home, I've always been resigned to ride a bicycle.  Having said that, I don't actually ride bicycles in Melbourne, not for many years anyway.  Having had an electric scooter thrust upon me, and having to have a quick practice go to get used to it during my Orientation, I've now become accustomed to riding one to and from work almost every day.  Although not as poignant as the healing and philosophical cross country trip with a son, as narrated in Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, my daily scooter rides have been one of my highlights of being here so far.

Indeed there is a certain level of freedom sitting on a two-wheeler, going at full speed, feeling the air on your skin, even if frigid, despite a top speed of 25 km/h.  Certainly no speed demon.  I've run faster than this  before.  Nonetheless, my commute usually takes ten minutes.  I begin by scanning a QR code on one of the blue Hello Bikes parked at the main intersection nearby my apartment.  After the bike unlocks and the almost condescending 'hello' is played, I wheel the bike onto the road, being careful to avoid other scooter riders, sit on, squeeze the throttle and zip away.  The first half of the ride is bumpy, given the amount of potholes that exist.  At certain times of the day, the ride can be a bit nerve-wracking as there are many other riders, some able to go much faster, as well as other two-wheeled contraptions and carts hitched to their backs.  The general road rule to follow, or that I follow anyway, is not to fall off.  This can be tricky, especially when trying to pass other scooters who swerve all over the place.  I've learnt that when turning left into the main gate of the campus, to wait a a little and look to the left, so as not to ride in front of oncoming traffic also turning left, which includes buses.  I've also learnt that gloves are very useful when the temperature is 5 degrees outside and you're heading to your 8am class at 7.30am.  Another valuable lesson, which I wish had been written down or clearly pointed out from the start, is that the scooters with yellow stickers at the back are the ones bound to the campus.  This would explain why my AliPay app was going haywire, with strange screens all in Chinese, repeately prompting me to pay ten times the normal ride fee I usually pay of about 1.3-1.5 RMB, in fines.

I do enjoy coming home mid-morning or mid-afternoon.  I usually have a lot of the road to myself and it's quite pleasant riding down the side of the university, as the road is nicely tree-lined, as is the last stretch before I have to turn off into my neighbourhood.  I've ridden a couple of times at night, coming home from an evening class.  This is probably the most difficult, because it's harder to see and i definitely ride a bit slower.  Half of the Hello Bikes have an oversized blue helmet, some attached to their bikes by a cord.  Of these, most feature ridiculously difficult to adjust straps, rendering them almost useless.  Although it is a requirement to wear helmets, I've been told the police are lenient when it comes to the pooled bikes and scooters, and rightly so, because these blue helmets would most likley cause more damage when wearing one and falling off than not wearing one!

In the end, all this riding has given me new food for thought, and I'll definitely investigate the possibility of going on trips into the countryside on future holidays to Thailand or Vietnam.  





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